


Deserve to Be Saved

by maxxeoff



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hell, M/M, Pre-Episode: s04e01 Lazarus Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxxeoff/pseuds/maxxeoff
Summary: Dean doesn't think he deserves to be saved.A drabble exploring Cas saving Dean from Hell.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Deserve to Be Saved

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSacrificialPancake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSacrificialPancake/gifts).



Dean wishes that he felt numb.

After forty years in Hell, torturing and being tortured, one would think you get used to it.

You don't.

Dean has lived through pain, experienced loss and heartbreak, dull and sharp. However, having Hellhounds rip apart your flesh and guts while you watch is a new kind of horror that Dean witnessed for too long before sinking into the darkness crowding in at the corner of his eyes.

But Hell is worse.

He's tortured, flayed, burned and frozen, eaten and spat back up, again and again. Alastair, his own personal devil, whispering in his ear at all times, makes it somehow all the worse. Every time his fingernails are pulled off and shoved down his throat, Alastair is there, _encouraging._

"You can flip the script, Dean. Be off the rack. You know how, I know you do. You'd be perfect. Come on, Dean, let's do it. You and me."

Every time, Dean growls out " _Fuck off"._ Sometimes he sobs the words. Sometimes he can hardly say them.

They get weaker every time.

After the equivalent of thirty years in the pit, Dean says yes.

And he tortures other souls.

He hurts them, like how Alastair hurt him. He digs out their eyes, pours acid between their muscles and their skin, whispers horrible things into their ears.

He knows he will never be saved. This is it. This is what he will do for the rest of eternity.

He doesn't have a mirror, but he knows that his eyes flicker black sometimes. Alastair smiles at him the first time, and Dean shudders. It hurts, painfully and dull, to know that he's become like that _man._ That _thing._

It's only a matter of time before Dean's soul sinks fully into being a demon. He resigns himself to it, but it never stops hurting.

One day, not that time matters, Dean is filling his ears with the screams of the damned, drawing out those shrieks with a scalpel he's particularly fond of. (It leaves less blood, so Dean can pretend he's just touching the soul on the surface. It doesn't actually work, he still feels their pain.) Alastair is cooing at him, praising him, voice disgusting and rough and familiar. He still manages to make Dean flinch at every wretched smile.

And something changes.

Something new is there.

A presence.

 _It's beautiful,_ thinks Dean.

He runs as Alastair screams in anger.

Behind him has appeared a being of pure light, righteous and good, suffusing the chamber with the flap of holy wings for a moment before stilling. Dean takes a breath - he still hasn't broken himself of that habit - and catches the scent of grass and sunshine. He starts crying as he pulls himself away. His legs are suddenly jelly.

Above Alastair's cries of rage, the _being_ 's words fill the cavity where Dean's sure his soul has shriveled.

_DEAN WINCHESTER. I HAVE COME TO RAISE YOU FROM PERDITION._

Alastair beats at the light, screaming for aid. The thing stands - _floats?_ \- strong.

"No. _No!"_ This thing can't take him. Why does it think it can? It feels pure and light, warm and wonderful. Everything Dean is not. Everything about this being is _good_ , and it is slowly diffusing Alastair's attacks. It's _moving towards Dean.  
_

Alastair's voice comes and sinks whatever is left of Dean's heart to the bottoms of his feet.

"You will never have him. He is one of _us,_ " the demon snarls.

He's right. Dean senses his eyes flicker to black as he thinks of his handiwork, his art of torture. How many souls he's personally torn and destroyed. He has violated every code of humanity he used to hold. This _being_ should leave.

Tears pour down Dean's face, his fingernails dig into his palms. (It never stops hurting. Even a small injury is worth tenfold in Hell. Dean digs harder to feel the blood pool and drip.) He squares his shoulders against this being of light and goodness.

It will not take him. He will fight it. (He can't look at it without shivering.)

The being intones, calm as a lake on a windless day: _NO. HE IS NOT._

And it is suddenly _there._ In front of Dean. Alastair is thrown off, cries no longer reaching Dean. His vision is filled with light too bright to handle, he hears the flapping of too many large wings, he once again smells _green_ and _blue_ and _good._ The being, he can see now, is _love._

Dean opens his mouth to scream. He raises his fists to fight.

 _It touches him_.

A palm, somehow, on his left shoulder. It feels more real than anything has, even in the depths of Hell.

Dean sighs in relief, vision going black.

He wakes up on earth.


End file.
